


We Were Only Ever Stardust

by PardonMyManners



Category: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016), Star Wars - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, Angst, Drama, F/M, FIx It, Fluff, Humor, Prompt Fill, Romance, Tumblr Prompt
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-12-29
Updated: 2017-01-06
Packaged: 2018-09-13 06:03:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 7,080
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9109813
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PardonMyManners/pseuds/PardonMyManners
Summary: A place for all my Jyn/Cassian/Rogue One drabbles and prompt fills.Stories vary in length.-*-*-*Surviving Scarif isn’t the end, it’s more of a launching point, a moment in time to point her finger at and say ‘this, this is where everything changed.’ They’re treated like heroes until everyone realizes how very unheroic they all are. A ragtag bunch of outcasts that aren’t exactly blessed with social aptitude.





	1. Hey, Jealousy

**Author's Note:**

> Just a place for all my drabbles and little stories. Most were originally posted on tumblr @pardonmymannerssir  
> Drop by and say hello! Enjoy!
> 
> PROMPT: someone flirts with cassian, jyn gets jealous while he's oblivious, and everyone else finds it hilarious because of the mutual pining <3 basically all the tropes :)

Things between them are… comfortable. Easy. _Relaxed_.

They work well together, which is relatively surprising considering how incompatible they’d seemed at the start. 

Life, Jyn’s found, is _full_ of surprises. 

The galaxy expands for her, but rather than making her feeler smaller, insignificant even, it somehow makes her feel like _more_. Makes her feel like she’s connected to something beyond herself. Chirrut would probably say it’s the Force weaving through her, through them all, and maybe it is, but what really matters is that for the first time in her life, Jyn has something worth fighting for.

Which is why when Princess Leia Organa rushes toward Cassian and catches him in a fierce hug the day they arrive at Hoth, Jyn feels something delicate splinter apart inside her chest. There’s a broad smile on his face as he returns the Princess’s hug, a smile Jyn’s never seen before, and for a moment she can’t breathe. 

What feels like hours, possibly even years later, Cassian finally releases the other woman and turns to Jyn, still smiling as something slithering and oily grows in her stomach.

“Leia,” he says, “this is Lieutenant Jyn Erso. Jyn this is-“

“I know who she is,” Jyn snaps and Cassian’s smile falters, brow creasing slightly in confusion.

The Princess, Jyn realizes, is a true politician as she merely smiles kindly and says, “And I know who _you_ are. You’re the one responsible for the retrieval of the Death Star plans. Words can’t express my gratitude for your bravery and determination.”

If the Princess had been trying to make her feel small and shitty about herself, Jyn has to admit she’s succeeded as her cheeks burn hot with shame.

“Er, don’t mention it,” Jyn manages lamely, half wishing the snow beneath her feet would open up and swallow her whole.

The Princess is still smiling as she says, “There’s a transmission I’d like you to look at if you’ve got a moment, Cassian?”

Cassian nods, giving Jyn an odd, imploring look. “Yes, of course. I’ll uh, see you in the mess at dinner, Jyn?”

“Yeah,” Jyn says as the two turn to walk down the tunnel, talking animatedly between themselves. “See you at dinner…”

–

“You are behaving strangely,” K2 says as Jyn cleans her blaster for the third time that day. With Cassian caught up in central command, the droid has been following her around more often than not.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she says airily, peering down the spotless ion barrel.

“You did not have breakfast or lunch with Cassian today and you skipped dinner last night. This is highly irregular behavior. Are you ill?”

Jyn squeezes her eyes closed for a moment and grits her teeth. “I just… don’t feel like socializing, is that alright with you?”

There is a long pause. “Is it perhaps your monthly female cy-“

“Finish that statement, Kay,” she growls, “and they’ll be finding pieces of you on the other side of the galaxy.”

Another long pause and a very mechanical sigh. “I do not understand humans.”

–

Baze opens the door to his small quarters, takes one look at her, and slides it back closed. Jyn frowns at the door and bangs her fist against it.

“Go away,” he says blandly from the other side.

“I thought we could go down to armory, see what they’ve managed to-“

“No,” he interrupts, voice muffled through the door. “You thought you could use me as a way to avoid Cassian.”

Fire burns in her cheeks and she glances furtively up and down the hall to insure no one has heard as she steps closer to the door.

“T-That’s ridiculous.”

“No,” he drawls, “ _you two_ are ridiculous. Now go away and stop being such a child.”

Jyn makes a very rude gesture at the door and stalks down the hall, realizing that she is, in fact, behaving rather like a petulant child. But she can’t stand another moment of watching Cassian and the Princess smile and fawn over each other. Can’t stand to listen to them swap stories and laugh at stupid jokes she doesn’t understand. Can’t stand another reminder that she really doesn’t know much about him at all.

Tears prick at her eyes and they make her irrationally angry.

“I’m such an idiot,” she practically shouts, startling one of the new pilots who’d had the misfortune of turning down the wrong tunnel at precisely the wrong moment. He gives her a concerned look as she pushes past, completely ignoring him and wondering if maybe she can convince Commander Draven to send her on some wildly dangerous mission or something. 

Anything to distract her from the distinct sensation of her heart breaking.

–

Draven assigns her to tunnel duty.

“You’re a terrible pilot and we need to keep a low profile.”

Jyn bristles. “I can keep a low profile.”

Draven looks her square in the eye for a moment before he throws his head back and laughs until he’s practically crying.

–

Three weeks after their arrival at Hoth, Cassian finally corners her in a tunnel she’s spent the better part of the afternoon carving. K2 had kept her company for a little while, likely out of sheer boredom, but had eventually left after exclaiming some concern over the violent manner in which she’d been wielding her ice pick and heat gun.

“Jyn, what’s going on?” Cassian demands, making her jump and clutch at her chest.

“Draven’s _balls_ , Cassian, you nearly gave me a heart attack,” she snaps, turning to find him standing behind her, his stance wide enough to nearly swallow the entire tunnel.

“You’ve been acting oddly, even K2’s noticed,” he says, frowning down at her with his stupid dark eyes and his stupid dark hair that curls invitingly at his collar. Her fingers itch to touch the strands so she clenches them into fists.

“I’ve just been busy, you know, carving tunnels and being in everyone’s way,” she bites back bitterly.

His frown deepens, concern softening his gaze, and she _hates_ it. Hates that he looks at her like that. “Jyn, let me help you, if you tell me what’s wrong-“

“Nothing’s wrong!” she half shouts, irrational anger and hurt boiling over until she finds herself tossing the ice pick aside and making to push past him, desperate to escape before she does something truly stupid.  

“It doesn’t seem like nothing!” he half shouts back, shifting to block her path bodily. “You’ve been avoiding me for weeks!” She’s entirely too angry and wrapped up in herself to really notice the hurt that leaks into his tone.

To her sheer and utter horror, tears well as she pushes at him, trying to get him to move.

“I didn’t think you’d noticed I was gone,” she counters, voice quavering, “What with the _Princess_ around.”

She can feel Cassian stiffen and there’s a pregnant pause where she can’t make herself look at him, terrified of what she might find. Anger? Confusion? Or, worst of all, pity?

“Is _that_ what this is about?” he asks, voice gone deep, rough even, and it makes her spine tingle. Its entirely unfair the effect he has on her.

“This is about _you_ being in my bloody way!” she says in a rising panic, her heart hammering dangerously in her chest.

“Jyn,” he says and her name sounds…different when he says it like that, all tender and full of meaning. It makes the cracked pieces of her heart ache.

She squeezes her eyes shut as he gently turns her face towards him and he says her name again, still soft, still evocative. 

“W-what are you doing?” she demands in a shrill whisper that sounds nothing like her actual voice.

She can feel his breath on her mouth as his fingers tighten slightly against her jaw. “I’m trying to kiss you, if you’ll stop being an idiot long enough for me-“

Jyn’s eyes fly open, temper flashing. “I am not an idiot, how dare-“

He’s laughing as his lips find hers and she’s frozen for a split second before she almost lunges forward in an attempt to latch herself to him. He chuckles again, the sound vibrating through him and into her, before she nips at his lower lip and the sound turns into a groan.

“I think,” K2 announces from behind Cassian, causing them to jump apart. “That I understand now.”


	2. Never Tell Me the Odds

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> PROMPT: cassian proposes (fix-it au). i just want some established relationship fluff please <3

Cassian hears the clang and whir of K2’s approach and steels himself.

“I have finished compiling my research and data,” the droid says by way of greeting.

Cassian sighs and sets his datapad aside. K2 replaces it with another.

“Kay, I’ve told you I don’t-“

“There is a forty eight percent chance that she will reject you.”

Cassian groans and pinches the bridge of his nose. “Kay, for the love of-“

“There is a seventy percent chance that the relationship will not last long term, and a thirty eight percent chance she may actually kill you.”

Cassian meets the droid eye to eye, lifts the datapad, and deposits it in the garbage.

“There is a fifteen percent chance that she will leave you for Bodhi Rook,” K2 says haughtily before departing from the room.

–

Cassian feels dead on his feet when he finally makes it back to his room. Jyn is still out on a reconnaissance mission so he has a long, lonely night ahead of him, and he’s feeling rather melancholy when he opens the door and flips on the light.

“Long meeting?” Baze asks, seated on Cassian’s bed with his massive blaster across his lap. Cassian only partially manages to suppress his high-pitched screech, literal years taken off his life.

“I thought we should talk,” the grizzled warrior continues, unperturbed and suspiciously pleasant as Cassian attempts to slow his heart-rate while clutching at the door frame for support. 

“Jyn is very important to me, to all of us,” Baze went on.

“Uh, right,” Cassian replies, mentally incapable of keeping pace.

“You should know that we’d be very disappointed if she were to become… unhappy in her relationship.”

Cassian blinks, straightens, and glares at the other man. “What is that supposed to mean?”

Baze rises to his feet, tall and rather menacing with a smile that doesn’t quite reach his eyes. He hefts his blaster over one shoulder and steps forward to place his hand on Cassian’s shoulder. He squeezes, hard.

“Nothing, nothing, just… give it some thought, mhm?”

“Give what some thought?!” Cassian half bellows at the closed door.

–

“I know she doesn’t seem it, but Jyn’s kind of a romantic.” Bodhi says casually, voice muffled from beneath a broken down speeder.

Cassian, sprawled out beneath another speeder nearby, contemplates running but is fairly certain he wouldn’t make it far. Nowhere is safe, apparently.

“I mean, nothing stupid or over the top,” Bodhi went on, “it is Jyn after all. But, I’m sure she wouldn’t mind flowers or sweets on occasion, or maybe a new blaster or something. You could even take her on a nice outing to a resort or something, I’ve heard her talk about this place on Carn she wants to visit, you know, if you were uh, thinking of maybe taking her somewhere-”

“Has Kay told everyone,” Cassian demands, only barely restraining himself from banging his head repeatedly on the dented motor above him.

“Well, I mean, it was Chirrut who told me, but I think it was Draven that told him so-“

Bodhi is interrupted by Cassian’s long and tortured groan.

–

For a blind man, Chirrut is very quiet.

“You’ve been avoiding me, Captain,” the man accuses from atop a line of lockers in the men’s showers.

Cassian slips and skids across the tiles, completely naked, before fetching up against a bench. He groans, though it sounds more like a sob.

“A diamond with a flaw is worth more than a pebble without imperfections,” Chirrut anoints as Cassian gets awkwardly to his feet.

“Please,” Cassian says, glancing about for his towel. “I beg you.”

“I thought you might want some advice,” Chirrut continues, leaping from the lockers. Cassian frequently finds himself questioning if the man is actually blind.

“I’d mostly like all of you to leave me alone,” Cassian says petulantly, finding his towel under another bench and wrapping it around himself.

The other man grins. “A green tree in your heart will bring a singing bird, my friend.”

“Right, well, thanks.”

“Would you like to share a drink, perhaps?”

Cassian sighs, utterly defeated. “Can I get dressed first?”

–

“I was thinking,” Jyn says languorously, wrapped around him, warm and soft and pliant.

“About?” he asks, half asleep, his fingers stilling in her hair as he turns to peer at her in the darkness of their shared room.

“About, well, maybe getting… married. I mean it’s kind of silly at this point, I guess. We’ve been sharing a room for three years so it would be mostly redundant, but we could have a little party, make it official and everything-“

Cassian interrupts her with a rough kiss that goes on for a good long while.

“So,” she teases, voice rather breathless. “Is that a yes?”

“I love you,” he gushes, a crushing weight lifting off his shoulders before reality comes crashing down. “But if the others ask, I proposed to you and it was very romantic and you cried.”

Cassian can feel her brow lift. “I cried?”

Cassian nods sharply. “Yes. You definitely cried and I definitely got down on one knee and it was definitely romantic, oh and you definitely won’t leave me for Bodhi.” This last bit has been bothering him just a tiny, tiny bit -not that he’d ever admit it to K2, or anyone else for that matter.

Jyn snorts into his neck, fingers dancing along his spine. “Deal.”


	3. Learning To Breathe

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> No prompt for this one. It was fueled by my own FEEEEELS. lol

Space is cold, and she can’t sleep. It feels like years since she’s had any rest, a lifetime maybe, but her head is too full of impossibilities to find stillness.

Wrapped in a blanket she slouches in one corner of the medical bay, gazing into the emptiness of space and _feeling_ it stare back. She hears his footsteps, quiet, careful, unsure. Some part of her had known he would come.

“I couldn’t sleep either,” he says, standing near her chair and gazing out into the darkness. The dim lights that run all along the perimeter of the room throw his face into sharp relief, etching his cheekbones and jawline in pale silver. He’s in loose, beige robes and they make him appear softer, younger, almost ethereal. Nothing about their present situation feels real, him least of all.

“I didn’t think we would survive,” she admits, clenching her fingers into her blanket to keep from reaching out and grasping his hand, just to reassure herself that he’s there. That they made it after all.

“Neither did I,” he replies, eyes darting toward her, a smirk tugging at his lips. It makes her chest ache, that not-quite-smile that’s both sardonic and sad.

Jyn smiles in turn, though it stings in places, places where her friends who didn’t make it linger and burn.

“What do we do now?” she murmurs, finding she is afraid. More afraid than she has ever been in her life.

He is silent for a long time, long enough that she isn’t sure if he means to reply at all before he says, “We live, Jyn, we _live_.”

–

They’re restricted to the Rebel base for recovery and are far removed from the destruction of the Death Star, but it feels like a punch to her gut. She stumbles from the command room as cheers ricochet off the walls, rebounding in her head, as she recalls her father’s face, the feel of him dying in her arms. She sees the faces of her friends who hadn’t made it, the loss of them lingering even as bones and flesh had healed.

She’s crying and panting and _heaving_ with the weight of it as she stumbles into an empty hallway, arms wrapped tightly around herself to keep from flying apart.

He finds her, of course. They’re in tune with one another in a way that only those who have fought and nearly died together can be; two sad, lonely planets in orbit around one another.

“Shh, Jyn, shh,” he murmurs, wrapping her into his arms, holding her together, and she can feel his lips move against her hair. “It’s alright, it’s alright.”

She’s gasping and sobbing and clenching his shirt so tightly in her hands that her knuckles are white. He holds her through the storm until the pain ebbs into something else, something they’ve been circling around for nearly as long as they’ve known each other. He smells of oil and laundered clothes and warm skin, a familiar scent that she wishes she could wrap herself in at night to banish the nightmares. Her heart trembles and she knows she looks a mess, but she pulls away, and he’s looking at her as if she’s something whole and good and real. Like she’s worth something, maybe everything.

He lifts a hand, usually so steady and so sure, and it shakes, trembles with the weight of what’s between them and she can’t breathe as he brushes the damp tendrils of hair from her face. His eyes are as dark as the spaces between the stars and they draw her in, but something flashes across his face, some old pain or memory and he alters his trajectory so that his lips burn a brand against her forehead.

“It’s done, it’s over now,” he tells her, tucking her head against his chest as she tries to quell the disappointment, the hurt, knowing she’ll take whatever he’s willing to offer.

“I’m not sure it will ever be over,” she murmurs, gently extricating herself and giving him a soft, sad smile before hurrying down the hall, something inside her mending and breaking simultaneously.

–

“You’re leaving,” she accuses, fingers tingling with rising panic.

Cassian flinches, dressed in his uniform, his hair combed and his facial hair trimmed. He looks hard again, like a freshly sharpened blade, and she hates it. _Hates_ it.

“I’ve been assigned to oversee a scouting mission,” he tells her, speaking to her shoulder. “We think they may be attempting to rebuild the Death Star.”

The word rattles through her, threatening to snap her bones with the force of them. She feels brittle and dry.  

“Fine,” she grinds out. “But I’m coming with you.”

He flinches, eyes darting away from hers, and terror solidifies in her throat. “I-I see,” she manages, fingers clenching and unclenching, attempting to reign in her rioting emotions.

“Jyn,” he begs, her name a blatant pleading note, and he reaches for her, but she flinches away from him.

“Go, leave me then,” she spits, turning away from him and wondering what in the galaxy she went on living for if all it had done was hone her into a brittle, fragile shell of a person.

He lunges, his hand like iron on her wrist. A shackle, a chain, the first in her life she hasn’t wanted to break.

“Jyn, please,” he grinds out, voice tight and thick with desperation and the sound forces her to turn. His eyes gleam with tears.

“It feels like you’re running away,” she tells him, hardly meaning to speak. “Like you’re running away from me.”

“No,” he breathes out, jerking her harshly toward him, crushing her against him. “Never you, Jyn. Never you. I don’t know-I can’t stop, that is-” he sighs, long and deep before trying again. “I’ve been running away from myself for so long I don’t know how to stop.”

Jyn draws herself together, gathers the shattered remains of her courage, and takes his face in her hands, his beard prickling and rasping against her palms. She realizes she’s not the only one who is brittle, and she knows she could break him into pieces with a breath, with a word.

“Just let me run with you,” she says and presses up and forward to find his lips.

He’s frozen and still for a heartbeat before his hand fists against her back and his mouth opens beneath hers. He tastes of fresh air, and something sweet, exotic maybe, and she hunts the flavor, drinking it in, savoring it. He kisses her like he’s saying goodbye, pressing her backward until she’s flush against the wall and melded to the taut lines of his body, his hands smoothing along and chasing each other across her back, her thighs, her stomach, her breasts.

He nips and sucks and groans against her neck, arching, thrusting, and grinding into her, and she feels like she can’t be close enough, could never be close enough. She wants to hold him to her, keep him safe and warm and loved. The universe is spinning and changing and reorienting itself as she discovers the taste of his pulse, the feel of his breath hot and moist against her collarbone, and the sound of her name on his lips like a prayer, like a benediction. Then he releases her, panting and ruffled, eyes shining like they had that terrible day in the elevator what felt like a lifetime ago. Like maybe she was something important, something special. Then he turns on his heel and leaves her behind as something different than she’d been when he’d found her.

–

She can’t handle being idle, obsessing over every detail of his mission, so she throws herself into whatever task they’ll give her. Most of it is menial, but she doesn’t mind. Anything to keep her hands and mind busy, to drive the memory of him away if only for a moment. But her dreams are a minefield of nightmares and his touch, his scent, his smile and his mouth. She can hardly stand it, and it’s as though he’d taken half of her with him across the vastness of space.

And then the Empire attacks and she volunteers for Endor. She records a message for him, debates on transmitting it, but settles for stowing it among her meager possessions, knowing if he lives and she does not, he’ll find it and he’ll know. Know that she’s sorry for her anger, for her selfishness, but she’s not used to wanting a person like she wants him. Doesn’t know how to make him see that he’s good, perfect, and everything to her. That there is no Jyn without Cassian, not anymore.

Endor is beautiful and strange and deadly, but she discovers that she enjoys being in the field again, a blaster in hand and men at her back. It’s a tough fight, one they nearly lose, but then it’s over, it’s all over, and her men cheer and they cheer for _her_. For her friends who made it and especially for those who hadn’t and she has to pinch herself hard on the side to keep herself from collapsing into a sobbing heap. This time it’s over, truly and really over, and she starts to hope for something more than stolen moments and desperate battles. She begins to imagine a galaxy in which they can both stop running, from themselves and each other.

He finds her during the celebration, still dressed in his orange flight suit, hair a mess, and he’s grinning so broadly his teeth gleam like stars.

She smirks at him, and he laughs, laughs like she’s never heard him laugh, and he swoops her up and spins her around, and she thinks her father _would_ be proud. Proud of her for finding the strength to live, to rediscover who she is without the shadow of him bearing her down. Living, after all, is much harder than dying.  

When Cassian sets her down and fits his mouth across hers, holding her face between his hands like she’s something precious, she realizes the Rebellion wasn’t her home, _he_ was her home.


	4. Misfire

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Another little drabble I wrote through my tears lol.

Bodhi had never been brave.

He’d spent nearly all his life as far away from the spotlight as possible, keeping his head down and his heart silent. Better to do as he was told and not consider the implications. His father had been brave, and his father had died. Bodhi understood where high ideals got people and what happened to their families once the smoke cleared.

Then he’d met Galen Erso, and everything had changed. Bodhi had been reminded of the gentle kindness and the profound and endless empathy of his own father, considering for the first time that perhaps his father’s death had been worth something, after all. Something worth trying and dying for.

Sometimes, like now, for instance, Bodhi wished he had never met the tragic scientist with his gentle hands and his sad, sad eyes. Mostly he just hoped it would not all be in vain.

Bodhi’s hands shook with relief as he rose shakily to his feet. His ears buzzed with adrenaline and he’d all but forgotten the literal battle raging just outside the ship. He’d done it. He’d done something worthwhile, something good, something _brave_. There was a chance. There was hope. Maybe not for him, but who was he, anyway? No, this was beyond him, beyond any of them.

A clang drew his attention, a red flashing cylinder striking the ceiling and rolling fast across the floor to rest against his boot. Bodhi was frozen with realization as the grenade ticked the seconds away. He thought of his father and wondered if he felt as Bodhi did at that moment. 

At peace.

—

Cassian had never been a good man.

Bold, reckless, and fearless maybe, but never good. Never that. He’d never had the luxury of being moral.

All his life he’d done what needed to be done, slowly selling his soul a piece at a time until he’d been little more than bitterness and a blaster. She’d changed that, somewhere along the way. He wasn’t quite sure when, or how, but she’d made herself the center of his pathetic universe, and he’d been helplessly pulled into her orbit.

Everything hurt. Bones were broken. Blood dripped onto the metal grating, and he was tired, so very tired. It was a deep, bone weariness, the sort he’d seen before in other men when they’d reached their limits and settled into a quiet death. But Jyn needed him, and he wasn’t really used to people needing him for something other than his ability to aim and shoot. She needed him like he needed her, and so he pulled himself up, and he pulled himself out, not giving a damn about the mission or the Rebellion, only hoping he might make it in time to save her. To do some good after all.

—

Jyn had never had a home. Not really. Not in a very long time.

Once she’d had a small house, on a nearly deserted, lonely planet with her father and mother, but even then, the shadow of the Empire had loomed over them all. Weakening her father’s smile and darkening her mother’s gaze. All her life she’d been on the run, scraping to get by, relying on only herself.

Cassian pulled her closer, and his eyes shone in the darkness. The lift descended and time seemed to slow. Funny how now, battered, broken, and near the end, she’d found something safe, something that wouldn’t leave her behind. 

He’d been right, though maybe he hadn’t understood why. She’d found a home. In him. 

She touched his face, slid her palm into the ruffle of his hair against the back of his neck, too long perhaps, but soft and cool between her fingers. His hand slipped around her waist, across her hip, and up her back, hitting all her cuts and bumps and bruises and she couldn’t have cared less. Or perhaps she couldn’t have cared more. He looked at her as if she were the only thing in all the galaxy, the only thing he ever wanted to look at, and some empty place inside her was filled to brimming. This is what it feels like to be wanted, she thought, to be cherished. To not be left behind.

Despite the realization that there wasn’t much hope, at least not for them, not anymore, there was nowhere else she’d rather have been than with him, in a rumbling elevator on some gods forsaken planet, breathing his air and feeling his warmth against her.

“Are you with me?” she asked, leaning forward till her brow rested against his.

“All the way,” he murmured, cupping her face. His thumb, rough like him, but tender in its way, rubbed along her cheek bone.

The elevator doors opened, and they stepped into the sunlight, arms wrapped around each other, holding up the universe between them.

–

Lieutenant Fane couldn’t quite believe what he was hearing. It wasn’t possible, everyone had said it wasn’t possible, but the transmission played on. He choked on the improbability of it for a long moment before he clumsily ripped his headset off and stumbled to his feet.

“Commander!” he called, drawing the attention of the entire room. “Commander, I-I’ve just received a transmission, s-sir. I-Its, well, its Rogue One and they’re requesting permission to land, s-sir.”


	5. I keep a close watch on this heart of mine

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “We’re putting her under your command,” Commander Draven tells him as they watch a training officer drag the woman in question –girl, really- bodily off another recruit. 
> 
> “Is this punishment for what happened on Glygon?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Quick little prompt fill, but a really fun story concept! Will likely revisit it in the future. :D
> 
> PROMPT: cassian/jyn prompt where jyn joins the resistance after she is left by saw.

Cassian knows trouble when he sees it. He’s developed a sort of sixth sense for it, honed from years spent on the streets of Bereen where he’d done whatever he’d had to do to survive, scraping by with little more than wits and instinct. They hadn’t let him down, not yet.

And right now they’re telling him that Jyn Erso is, without a doubt, _trouble_.

“We’re putting her under your command,” Commander Draven tells him as they watch a training officer drag the woman in question – _girl_ , really- bodily off another recruit.  

“Is this punishment for what happened on Glygon?”

Draven snorts. “She’s a capable fighter, Andor. Best I’ve seen in years, possibly even better than _you_.”

Cassian grunts, arms crossed over his chest. “She’s a loose cannon who doesn’t follow orders.”

“Reminds me of someone else I used to know.”

Cassian bristles. “That was a long time ago.”

–

He has to throw her in a containment cell her first week under his command. The only thing she seems any good at is starting fights. _Winning fights_ , he corrects reluctantly.

“You can stay in here till you learn to stop acting like a wild animal,” he tells her, flinging her into the cell by the scruff of her neck.

She curses at him, face bloodied and left eye swelling shut. There is something savage about her, the sort of beastly barbarity he’s seen in wounded animals. Jyn Erso, for all her bravado, is a broken, bleeding thing, and he knows a great deal about being broken. He can think of no other way to help her but to give her some time to think.

Cassian closes the door and leaves her to it.

–

He leaves her in the cell for two days, coming to her on the second night during the dog watch. She’d been a wild spiting hellcat when he’d left her, but now she is subdued, hunkering in one dark corner. He call feel her eyes tracking him in the darkness and the hairs rise on the back of his neck.

“Here,” he says, throwing a flask into her lap before taking a seat beside her.

She is still for a long moment before finally lifting the flask and taking a long swallow, wincing against the split in her lip.

“I don’t want you here if you don’t want to be here,” he says as the silence drags and intensifies. He leans his head back and braces his arms on his knees.

“You think they gave me a choice?” she asks, voice rough from disuse.

He glances at her. She looks young in the moonlight that filters from a single window high above, younger than he’d previously thought.

“There’s always a choice,” he says quietly, thinking of a childhood he’d rather forget.

She snorts and sighs, head thudding gently against the stone wall behind her. “Not for me.”

Cassian considers for a long moment. “I know what it is to be left behind,” he says. Draven had told him, explained to him how’d they’d found her with nothing more than an old blaster and the clothes on her back.  “But you can’t spend your whole life waiting for the other shoe to fall. I meant what I said. If you don’t want to be here, I don’t want you here.”

Again there is silence and Cassian shifts, ready to leave, when she sweep out her arm and presses the flask to his chest. Her face, when he looks, is set with determination. “Saw used to say that we can’t always chose our circumstance, but we can chose to make them better.”

She meets his eye and Cassian takes a sip from the flask before passing it back to her and it’s a silent agreement between them.

–

She throws herself into her training and into their missions, but somehow remains a giant pain in his ass all the same.

“I told you to wait for backup,” he shouts over the sound of explosions.

Jyn rolls her eyes as she hunkers down next to him, blaster in hand. “Don’t be such a baby, it worked, didn’t it?”

Cassian grinds his teeth. “That isn’t the point, I gave you a direct order-“

“Which I decided not to follow, _yes,_ I am aware of what happened, _Lieutenant_. Now, can we get the hell out of here and you can yell at me later, somewhere less… explosive?” She arches a teasing brow that does something ridiculous to his chest,  before taking him by the hand and draging him along the walkway, flames dancing below their boots through the metal grating.

“You do understand that I’m your commanding officer, right?” he yells, his tone rather more defeated than he would like.

She shoots him a look over her shoulder, perfeclty at ease as the world burns down around them. “You do know I don’t give a shit, right?”

_Trouble_ , he thinks dismally, _nothing but trouble_. 

-

Yavin is quiet, for once. The sky feels heavy and the moon intrusive.

“My mother hated space travel,” she says with little preamble and Cassian goes a bit tense. They’re alone, having been assigned to the second dog watch, and he seems more aware of her in the darkness. The cadence of her breathing, the slight shifting of her weight from one foot to the other. The way her eyes shine and her hair flutters against the pale curve of her cheek. She’s young, younger than him, at least, but sometimes she seems like the oldest person in the galaxy.

“My mother never left her home planet,” he finds himself saying. He doesn’t talk about his family, his past. He hasn’t thought of his mother in almost a decade.

She glances at him briefly and there is some unknown emotion there, something she doesn’t want him to see. “You could almost envy that.”

Cassian looks away, suddenly aware he’d been staring, and watches the trees sway in a cool breeze. “She died, not much to envy there.”

“Everyone dies,” she says after a long moment. “It’s living that’s the hard, complicated part.” There’s a sort of wistful melancholy in her tone that he can’t translate, exactly, but it echoes in his bones.

“Why did you stay?” he blurts out, partially from a desperation to change the subject and partially because it’s a question that plagues him some nights for reasons he can’t quite express.

She glances at him again, a small smile tugging at her lips. A real smile, he thinks, not the sardonic one she uses like a shield between her and the rest of the world. “Maybe I just got tired of running.”

–

She helps him recover the Imperial Droid -though she gripes about it the _entire time-_ and is present when he finishes reprogramming it.

“Seems like a waste of time to me,” she says around a mouthful of fruit.

“Good thing I didn’t ask you,” he grumbles, tightening a final bolt on the droid’s circuit panel.

“Testy, testy,” she teases, and Cassian glances around the tower of metal in front of him to watch one slim ankle bounce against her knee. She’s dressed down, sporting a loose shirt and tight pants, her boots partly unlaced. If she were to be stopped by an officer in the halls Cassian knows he would hear about it but, well, maybe he likes the way she always looks a little unkempt, a little disheveled.

Cassian powers the K-2SO unit on, mostly to distract himself from the strange and dangerous path his mind had traveled down.

The droid boots up immediately and makes an immediate lunge for Jyn, who squawks like some gurgling bird and tumbles sideways off the work bench.

“That’s enough,” Cassian says casually and the droid straightens.

“I sensed danger,” the droid replies and points at Jyn, who scowls up at them both. “She is dangerous.”

Cassian barks out a laugh, leaning against the droid who blinks at him in confusion as Jyn climbs grumpily to her feet.She ducks her head but not fast enough to hide the smile tugging at her lips. 

“This was an excellent idea,” he concludes, banging a fist against the droid’s metal chest plate, beyond pleased with himself. Whether he’s talking about the droid or Jyn, well, it doesn’t really matter does it?


	6. Memories Like Bullets

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> She tastes like something inevitable.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> PROMPT: cassian and jyn confiding in each other about their nightmares

There’s something between them, has been almost from the start.

It hums under her skin every time they’re alone, every time he looks at her with dark eyes and a careful smile.  It’s a distraction sometimes, the way he makes her feel like there’s a small sun trying to form inside her chest, but mostly it makes her feel safe… hopeful even.  Hopeful that someday, after all the death and pain and uncertainty has passed, there might be some piece of her left worth saving.

–

He isn’t used to wanting things.

Isn’t used to looking at something and wishing it was his, wishing he were another man in another place with a few less scars and a few less empty places in his heart. But he wants. _Wants_. It’s all he can see, or feel, or think when he looks at her, but he’s terrified of having. Like a child who catches a wild animal and sudden realizes they have no idea what to do with it. 

–

Surviving Scarif isn’t the end, it’s more of a launching point, a moment in time to point her finger at and say ‘ _this, this is where everything changed_.’ They’re treated like heroes until everyone realizes how very _unheroic_ they all are. A ragtag bunch of outcasts that aren’t exactly blessed with social aptitude. 

Jyn doesn’t like the attention. She’s spent her entire life trying to blend in, to go beyond notice or care. To have people think she’s brave or honorable or good just feels wrong and strange. Feels like they’re talking about someone else.

He, at least, seems to understand. Scarif may have been a step toward redemption, but he’s got years of blood on his hands and that doesn’t wash off over night. Neither of them are built to stand in the spotlight, so they cling to the shadows, to the ambiguous gray areas between the Rebellion and the Empire. They get their hands dirty so no one else has to.  

–

Their nightmares seem in competition with each other. Who can get the least amount of sleep, who can wake up the most often with a scream trapped in their throat, who can cry the most quietly into their makeshift pillow when it all seems too much? He supposes it’s inevitable that they would crash together, that they find one another in the chaos of the storm, another broken soul to lean against in hopes of making it through the devastation. He wonders if that’s what he really wants, just another person to drown with him so he doesn’t have to sink alone. But, for all her sullen silences and her flippant remarks, there’s a fire ragging beneath her skin and there are nights, when his demons are breathing down his neck, he thinks that maybe she can save him. That maybe she already has.

They’re on a reconnaissance mission to some hellish planet where it never stops raining when she slips into his sleeping bag.

Everything is damp and sticky, the heat radiating from her body making him itch and sweat, but he reaches out and draws him to her. She’s so small like this. It’s easy to forget how capable she is, how deadly and cold she can be when her head fits beneath his chin and her small hands are tucked up against his chest. The rain is loud on the hull of their space craft but he can still hear her breathing.

“In my dreams we die,” she murmurs into his throat. “Over and over again.”

His fingers tighten against her hip and the fire in her catches and sparks inside him. His mouth goes dry and he closes his eyes.

“In my dreams we live… and we fail,” he says, hand drifting up the curve of her spine, feeling the evenly spaced ridges like a dangerous path beneath his fingers. She trembles slightly, clenching as his shirt as her head tips back, a shaky exhale painting his face in warmth.

“You win,” she says, and she probably means to tease him, to deflect the tension with a quip or a sardonic remark, but it falls short as he opens his eyes and reaches for her face in the semi-darkness. Sometimes she doesn’t feel real to him, sometimes he isn’t sure he wants her to be real because at least he knew who he was before she came into his life.

He tugs at the moist warmth of her bottom lip.

“Sometimes,” she says, eyes fluttering as his fingers grip the back of her neck and his thumb angles her jaw. “Sometimes I think it might have been better if we’d died there. I-I feel lost, disjointed, like I don’t fit-“

“You fit with me,” he half growls and kisses her without quite deciding to. It’s a distraction, this thing between them. A distraction that could easily get them and everyone around them killed. He’s seen it happen, more than once, but it isn’t enough to stop him.

She tastes like something inevitable.

**Author's Note:**

> Reviews are lovely and so are you!


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